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Marco Polo-R Will Use Primitive Asteroid in Space to Study Earth Evolution
In November of 2011, an asteroid by the name of 1996 FG3 – an asteroid first observed in 1996 by Robert H. McNaught of the Siding Spring Observatory – made another close pass to Earth. Scientists leaped at the opportunity to observe the target as it passed. 1996 FG3 is a target as part of the European Space Agency’s MarcoPolo-R mission.
The asteroid is listed as a a “potentially hazardous object”, and passed a solar distance from Earth of about 1.2 AU – or 1.2 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
Upon its arrival in November and December of 2011, scientists used a variety of instruments to observe the asteroid. The SpeX instrument on Nasa’s Infrared Telescope Facility was used to capture “prism data” on multiple occasions during the pass.
Scientists also used the camera-spectrograph NICS at the El Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in La Palma, Spain.
What scientists discovered was that the asteroid contains hydrated minerals – concluding that it is a “primitive object”, containing what scientists call carbonaceous chondrite – which is material considered to be the Read more…
2012-11-26 12:05:42
Source: http://www.topsecretwriters.com/2012/11/marco-polo-r-evolution-of-earth/
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